


I Can't Be The Only One

by Bitch_In_The_Blue



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Anachronisms, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Gun Violence, Isolation, Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resentment, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:46:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25891558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitch_In_The_Blue/pseuds/Bitch_In_The_Blue
Summary: After Ellie leaves the farm for the last time, after Abby and Lev escape from Santa Barbara, rumors of the Fireflies draw them back into each other's orbit.
Relationships: Abby/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	1. But Now I'm Left To Sing This Song Alone

Jackson didn’t have the same feel to it when she approached the walls.  
It didn’t feel like coming home anymore, but rather the same as when she’d returned to the empty farm. Worse even.  
Here she would have to face Tommy, and let him know that she’d _chosen_ to let Abby go.  
She would have to see Joel’s empty house again.  
His grave.  
Jesse’s mom.  
JJ.  
 _Dina._  
  
Ellie’s remaining fingers curled into fists to steady shaking hands when she was let into town.  
Coming back felt like a bad idea now that she was here- but there was nowhere else to go that felt safe.  
She didn’t even know where to go now that she was here; yet her legs instinctively carried her toward the house. Just like old times-  
Until she stopped just short of the front steps. No longer adorned with flowers in memoriam of Joel Miller.  
Now cleared, like it had never been that way. A new name on the mailbox showed another family had moved in. ‘Johnson’.  
Ellie let out a wistful sigh, jaw clenching in reaction to the tightness in her chest.  
Did she think it would be vacant?  
Why did she even come here?  
This was a bad idea, there’s nothing-  
“Ellie?”  
She turned toward the familiar voice that brought back so many feelings. Dina. As beautiful as ever. On her hip, JJ. He'd grown so much since Ellie had last seen him- and looked even more like Jesse than before. God, how much did she miss?

"Hi, Di…"  
Dina advanced, breathlessly uttering a ‘holy shit’ as she threw her free arm around Ellie’s shoulders.  
Ellie’s expression twisted into a pained look when Dina couldn’t see, arms around her in return. JJ babbling quietly between them was the only sound in the world.  
She wished time would stop.  
But soon Dina pulled back, and Ellie wiped the look off her face the best she could.  
“I’m sorry I left.”  
“I know,” Dina looked just as hurt, and Ellie could see tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m just glad you’re alive and in one piece...”  
Ellie held up her hand, now missing two fingers. “Not exactly...”  
  
Seeing each other again didn’t mean they’d get back together. They both knew that.  
Ellie had fucked up by leaving, there was no denying it.  
Just one day more was enough.  
The plan was to stay the night in Jackson, gather supplies, and go. Maybe somewhere south. Where it was always warm.  
“ _Ow-_ Potato! Quit it!” Ellie managed a laugh when JJ had grabbed her cheek and squeezed. She held him upside down in retaliation and it only made him giggle louder. “His grip is ridiculous!”  
“Like I always said, ball of muscle,” Dina smiled and gathered dishes off of the table now that dinner was done. Ellie would stay the night, and would head out tomorrow.  
“Jeez, he’s gonna grow up to be a total tank,” Ellie lightly replied, looking over at her ex like she used to. Seeing warmth and love on her face for what she was seeing.  
And for a moment, things felt like they should.  
“I should get him to bed,” Dina suddenly said, and ended the moment when she realized it was happening.  
“I can do it,” Ellie replied, turning JJ upright in her arms and leaving her seat at the table. Silently berating herself for feeling.  
“You sure?”  
It was the last time she would get to see him sleep. “I’m sure.”  
  
Once JJ was changed into his pajamas and put down for bed, Ellie watched him doze off for a long few minutes, his soft little hand in hers.  
Weight on her shoulders knowing she had to remember this exact moment with every detail. She wished she had a camera.  
“He sleeps like a rock these days,” Dina’s voice came from the doorway. “ _Hours_ at a time.”  
“That’s new,” Ellie couldn’t take her eyes off him.  
“I set up the couch for you.”  
Ellie had to truly fight herself when it came time to let go of JJ’s hand and let him rest. She followed Dina back out to the living room and saw a blanket neatly folded on top of a pillow waiting for her.  
“You didn’t have to give me anything to sleep with,” she quietly said, sitting down where she’d sleep.  
“‘Course I did,” Dina replied, and sat in a nearby arm chair. “I-- I want you to be comfortable.”  
“Thanks…”  
Dina nodded, and the room was silent for a long moment.  
“I’m sorry,” Ellie suddenly said. “I really… I really thought finishing it would help me.”  
Dina tensed. “I know.”  
“You weren’t wrong to leave.”  
“I know…”  
“Please say something else.”  
 _Just yell at me. Tell me I’m an idiot and that you hate me. Make this easier…_ _  
_“I just-” Dina sighed, hunched forward to fold her hands between her knees, and slowly shook her head. “I thought so long about what I’d want to say if I ever saw you again. But now I don’t know what to say… I want to be mad at you. I’m _trying_ to be mad at you, Ellie.”  
Ellie felt her stomach turn icy.  
“But I can’t,” Dina continued, expression pained. Like the last time they’d spoken. “I just… I feel sorry for you.”  
“... Don’t.” Ellie finally said, eyes on the floor at her feet. She suddenly found it impossible to meet Dina’s gaze. “I did this. I couldn’t let it go and _I_ did this.”  
Dina hesitated to speak once more. “And Abby?”  
Ellie bit her lips together in a hard line, recalling the agony of getting her fingers bitten off. Watching Abby, watching her, as she and the kid left in the boat.  
They didn’t stop watching each other until the haze made it impossible to see anymore.  
“I let her go.”  
  
Ellie’s eyes were puffy when she woke up in the morning, before the sun could come up.  
She and Dina had spoken for a long time. Cried together. Said good night ten times before Dina finally left to go to bed.  
Ellie had to fight back the words she wanted to say. One last ‘I love you’ before they’d never meet again.  
But she didn’t want to fuck up anymore than she already had. She didn’t want to give Dina any false hope-- or give herself any, for that matter.  
  
So when she was ready, she folded the blanket she’d used, and set it back on top of the pillow.  
Tied up her boots, grabbed her backpack, and was gone.  
  
At least it was summer.  
The early morning wasn’t very cold, but it wasn’t comfortable either. She unrolled the sleeves of her flannel shirt to cover her goosebumps as she made her way to the gates.  
She was let out quickly, heading south with the rising sun at her side.  
Thinking about what she’d dreamed of last night.  
Over and over, replaying the moment she had found Abby at the pillars.  
 _“Help me. Please...”_  
Ellie could still hear the weak, dying voice of her enemy.  
How had the Big Bad Wolf, who was built like a brick shithouse, suddenly become this… stick thin, sunburnt, pitiful creature who had to be _forced_ to fight?

Ellie didn’t even _want_ to kill her anymore when she saw her, knowing then that Santa Barbara had been a fate worse than death. She’d forgotten her task as soon as she’d seen that Abby was already almost gone.  
And if the horrible image of Joel’s body hadn’t resurfaced right then… Would she really have just let them leave?  
  
Ellie had chosen to travel slowly during the first week. Going south from Jackson to Evanston, and trading supplies with some travelers.

Rumor had it that the Fireflies were regrouping in Las Vegas. Whether or not it wasn’t true was the real question. 

The Fireflies had disbanded because they'd lost their only capable surgeon.  
And their only immune test subject.  
And any hope of finding replacements.  
If they were having a reunion, Ellie could only guess that they’d found another surgeon or immune person. As unlikely as it was, she wanted to believe it was possible.  
  
She hauled herself up into the window of her chosen hideout.  
A second storey apartment that had been mostly untouched since Outbreak Day. Whoever had been living here must’ve evacuated because the closets had a lot of empty hangers and any valuable or sentimental items were missing. 

She enclosed herself into the unit, locking the window shut and closing the old, sun faded curtains and retreating to the inner rooms where she’d set up camp.  
She opened up a closet in search of a fresh set of clothes- and a guitar case fell out against her legs. She let out a huff and moved the case aside- weighted, likely still having the instrument inside. She searched through the clothes to find a suitable jacket- things were starting to cool down outside. And she’d be moving through the mountains for a few more weeks.  
A long sleeved shirt to wear under her flannel, and a jacket to layer on top. Good finds.  
Ellie sat on the bed while she tightly folded the clothes and put them into her backpack; then curiously got up to search the rest of the closet for anything that may be useful- and ended up finding a knife that popped open with the press of a button. She hooked it onto the back of her jeans to keep. Nothing else but sports equipment and shoes that wouldn’t fit her. When she stepped back from the closet, the back of her shoe bumped the guitar case that seemed to mock her.

A twinge of guilt.  
She stepped over it to sit on the bed once more, trying to ignore the case despite it being in her line of sight.  
A few tense seconds passed before she caved into the urge and pulled the case closer with her foot, leaning off the edge of the bed to take the instrument out.  
A quick strum, a quick tuning of two of the strings…  
She began to play a tune, distorted by the loss of her two fingers.  
“ _It’s so hard to let go… You can hear me but I’m invisible…_ ” Her voice came out weak, and her throat felt tight. Frustrated that the song didn’t sound right anymore. “ _But if you dig out your eyes, maybe pain will subside. The worst that could happen is you never see me again… But the worst has yet to come, my friend_ …”

Ellie felt like she was shaking, trying her hardest to hold herself together.  
Playing guitar used to bring solace.  
Now it was a painful reminder that she’d ruined everything. She left Dina and JJ, she couldn’t go through with what she’d left them for, and because she’d obsessed over it so much, she couldn’t play anymore. One of the few things that remained of Joel’s time in her life.  
  
She paused briefly, fist clenching beside the strings to steady herself before she continued.  
No longer singing to herself, just plucking at the strings. Each incorrect note mounted into a feeling of stress, and she had to put the guitar aside when tears blurred her vision.  
  
Ellie needed her immunity, and the losses involved, to matter. For all she’d been through to be for a purpose.  
It took this much blindness to finally see-  
Dina had given her purpose.  
The goal of killing Abby had given her purpose.  
Joel having become her family had given her purpose. She’d wasted nearly an entire year of avoiding him.  
And now without any of them, life was somehow emptier than before.  
The last five years were really for nothing.  
  
Rumors of Fireflies in Vegas.  
The hope that they had a shot at developing a cure again.  
Maybe this time...


	2. And I Can't Keep You Away

“Abby.”   
Her eyes opened when she heard Lev call for her. “What’s wrong?”   
“Nothing,” he said. “You were twitching a lot in your sleep. I thought you were having a nightmare.”   
“I’m okay.” She could still feel the phantom pain of the switchblade slowly burying into her chest. The sting of the slice across her cheek. Even now, two months later, she had repetitive dreams about the fight on the beach. The girl had just let them go.   
Even after all Abby had done to her.   
_ “Go... Just take him.” _   
The pitiful sobs had surfaced in her memory every day since they were uttered.   
The cycle was broken-- what changed in that instant?   
  
“What time is it?” Abby groggily asked, rolling over on the bed and pushing her hair out of her face. Too short to tie back, too long to ignore.

“The sun’s been up for a while,” Lev replied.    
She could see the beams coming through the cabin’s slats now that she’d turned over. They weren’t in her face- but they would be in a few minutes. “We should try to find some food.”   
“Already done,” He said.    
Abby crawled out of bed with a yawn. “Already?”   
“Some fish,” He nodded. “I wanted to make them the way my mom used to. I got a fire going outside.”   
“Sounds good.” She tied on her shoes and moved past him to open the door. Sunlight immediately flooded into the boat.   
It was pure luck that it hadn’t been taken away by high tide while they were imprisoned. It hadn’t even been stripped for supplies or parts.   
The weather was always nice here. They had only seen it rain once or twice since arriving a few months ago.  
  
Abby poked and prodded at the fire, making sure it didn't grow too high while Lev prepared the fish inside the boat.  
He soon emerged and Abby helped to skewer them on sticks and prop them up beside the flames.  
They ate soon after. Every meal after their escape tasted especially good- and they had that girl to thank for it.  
"We should try to find some supplies in town," Abby suggested.   
Now that they knew there were no Fireflies in Santa Barbara, they had to start planning their next move.   
"Do you think there's much left we can find?" Lev wondered. Between their captors and the others who escaped, Santa Barbara had to have been pretty picked over.   
"You never know," Abby shrugged. "We'll look it over today, plan where to go tonight, head out in the morning."  
  
They didn't even know her name.   
She was just- the girl who saw her slaughter Joel Miller in Jackson. She tracked Abby down all the way to Seattle, and subsequently to Santa Barbara, killed all her friends, and then just- let her off the hook.   
Seemed like she was always on Abby's mind now- why? It was over.   
"I found a… I don't know what this is," Lev's voice brought her back to the present situation.   
Abby turned to him, to see him holding a black square. "That's an old phone, Lev."  
He turned it over in his hands and pressed the buttons. "What's a phone?"  
She chuckled. "It used to be for talking to people. You could've called someone in, like, Japan to say hi."  
"How far away is that?" He looked at his reflection in the screen.   
The Scars really didn't do much for education from what she could tell. Strictly utilitarian in what they taught their children. Hell, Yara didn't even know where California was on a map of the U.S.   
Abby assumed they were limited to knowledge of Seattle and basic survival tactics.   
"Other side of the world," she answered, and continued looking through drawers for clothing. "Try holding down the one button on the side. Maybe it'll turn on."  
Lev did as instructed, wondering how exactly the device worked. "Will I be able to call anyone?"  
"Probably not," Abby said. "It's not like a radio where the signal is sent through the air. Phones used to go through satellites."  
"Cool," Lev nodded, seeing that the device wouldn't power on. He wanted to tinker more with it later, so he put it in his pocket.  
Abby smiled to herself. He used to have no concept of slang.   
  
It was a few minutes more before they abandoned the house they were searching to move on to the next.  
"Do you think we should head east?" Lev asked as they headed next door. No signs of infected nearby. All was quiet.  
"Or south," Abby said, rifle slung over her shoulder. "If we like the hot weather."  
"I don’t think I do…"  
"How about… Texas?" Abby asked. "Some parts aren't too hot or too cold, and there's lots of open land."  
"I kind of miss forested areas."  
"They are better for hunting," Abby agreed. "Maybe we stick to California. More north- near the redwoods. That's a lot of forest."  
"I like that." Lev smiled brightly.  
  
The windows of this house were all shattered. Easy access points.    
They knelt beside the open window and kept still for a long moment, listening for movement.   
Abby could hear the awkward shuffling of bare feet across the floor, followed by a distinctive sound of…  
"Clicker," she whispered. "Wait here."   
Lev nodded, and Abby climbed into the window. She kept low to the floor as she advanced. Peering through open doorways in search of the telltale clicks.  
There.  
The hallway ended with the house's kitchen, and the clicker inside was at a standstill. Twitching. Clicking every so often.   
Abby crept closer toward it and drew her knife. Without the same brawn as before, it was a lot harder to simply snap the neck.   
She grabbed the clicker from behind when she was close enough, arm around its throat and away from its teeth. It let out aggravated clicks and struggled against her grip until she buried the knife into its chest several times.   
The clicker went limp in her grip, and she let it drop to the floor-   
A sudden cracking noise from the wall at her back.   
Before Abby could fully turn around, a pale, skinny stalker emerged from its calcified outgrowth and tackled her to the floor.   
The wind was knocked out of her lungs, her knife slipped out of her grip and clattered across the floor when she landed. The stalker grabbed a fistful of Abby’s hair and tried to pull her head closer toward its gnashing teeth. Abby kept her hands on its shoulders, trying to keep it back, trying to draw up her legs to push it away but it was too close for her to do so.   
“Lev!” She called out in panic.   
The muzzle of a gun came into sight, and a single shot left her ears ringing as a bullet pierced the stalker’s skull and exited the other side. Abby quickly shoved the limp body off and got to her feet. She repositioned the rifle over her shoulder and looked to who had helped her- not Lev.   
Instead, the familiar face of a fellow prisoner.    
“Abby!” Lev bolted into the kitchen, bow drawn.   
He paused when he saw the man as well. Relieved that Abby wasn’t hurt.   
“You remember Logan,” Abby gestured toward their fellow survivor while she retrieved her knife and re-sheathed it on her belt.   
“Lev,” the tall, blond man greeted with a nod of his head. He slipped his revolver into the back of his pants.   
Lev noted that Logan had also put some weight back on now that he was free.    
“How did you get free?” Lev had to ask.   
“Some girl showed up and let us all out,” Logan answered, then looked to Abby. “She was looking for you.”   
Lev blinked.    
The girl who let them go had also freed the rattler’s captives?   
_ The same girl from Seattle? _ _  
_ “She let us down from the pillars,” Abby told him.   
Logan nodded. “And then?”   
Abby bit her lips together. “Left… Who else made it out?”   
“Everyone,” Logan said. “We killed all the fuckers. The resort’s ours now. You two can come back to stay if you wanna. We got plenty of food.”   
Abby looked to Lev. The hollows of his cheeks were only just starting to fill out again. And Abby only just recently stopped being able to see her own ribcage. “Sure. For the night.”  
  
“So what’s the plan?”   
Abby looked up from her freshly emptied plate at Jenny, another survivor. “We’re thinking of going a little north. Staying somewhere in the woods.”   
Jenny nodded. “You hear about the Fireflies gathering in Vegas?”   
Both Lev and Abby froze for a moment.   
“This time for real,” Jenny added.   
“I don’t think I can believe it a second time,” Abby dismissed the idea.  
“The first time we were all lured in individually,” McKenzie, who was sitting nearby, cut in. “We were all former Fireflies, looking to try again. If we all go together, we wouldn’t be caught.”   
Abby thought back on the months of hunger and maltreatment. Being beaten just for fun. Shoved in a cage. Pushed threateningly toward the chained up infected in the pool if she ever dared to resist. Only to be freed by someone who couldn’t let go of a grudge. What were the chances of that happening a second time? “I don’t think it’s worth that risk again.”   
Jenny and McKenzie knew the look in her eyes. They’d all had it while in that cell together.    
The look of hopelessness. Of giving up fighting for your own safety, or for the safety of someone the guards knew was your friend.   
“Think about it, Abby,” Jenny urged. “Those of us who are gonna go are heading out in the morning.”   
  
“I think we should go,” Lev told her when they were finally alone for the night.   
“It didn’t exactly go right last time, Lev,” Abby sat down on the cot she’d picked and laid out. She pulled her jacket over herself as a blanket.   
Lev was across the hallway laying on a couch. She was worried the prior lack of nutrition was the reason he hadn’t grown much taller since Seattle. He was 14 now.   
“‘When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light’,” Lev said, making her turn toward him. "That's the saying, right?"  
Abby sighed. "I need to stop telling you things."  
"You won't," Lev gave her a thin smile. "It's a light, isn't it…? And we wouldn't be alone."  
"And if we’re wrong?"   
"We try again," he said. "You said we have to follow leads."  
Abby sighed and turned to face the wall. Grumbling incoherently.   
" _Abby._ "  
"We'll go," she said over her shoulder. "But we need to be more careful. First sign of something going wrong, you and me get away. Fast."  
  
They fell asleep soon after, and Abby once more dreamed about the girl on the beach.  



End file.
